Saturday, December 20, 2008

A Voice from the Grave / Harrigan’s Wake!

As everyone’s favorite holiday (except mine) approaches, I guess it’s time to get the ball rollin’ on the not-even-remotely-American tradition of the Ghost Story for Xmas. I’m doing it this year in honor of my favorite English author of ghost stories, Montague Rhodes James--- this is for you, Old Boy! So pull up a roaring fire and everyone gather around, it’s that time…

Even though i saw both endings coming a mile away, they were both er...executed very well. I really loved the look of the docks with the outlines to suggest the city, very atmospheric art. As for the tradition of ghost stories at Christmasstime, it's not a forgotten tradition with me. Hell, i've RUINED Christmases with my taste in entertainment, thank whateverdeitythatsuitsyou i don't have kids.

I was kinda thinking that HARRIGAN'S WAKE was gonna be a leprechaun story.

Back in the 70's/80's, there was this locally produced kids show called HARRIGAN, featuring Barry Dale as a 200 year old leprechaun with an affinity for little children. He sang, he danced, he both amused and terrified. My parents knew him; he performed at their wedding (not as Harrigan, tho).

This story is toldof a wee leprechaunCame over to Canada 1801Seeking adventureand looking for funit's HAR-RI-GAN!H A double-R I G A Nit's HAR-RI-GAN!

Krigstein is probably not a bad guess, the coloring and detail look like him a bit but I'll hold off saying anything else as I tend to get my mittens slapped for my attempts at "art by" guesswork. Grrrr! Hissss!

In the THOIA Archives you'll find Weird Woman, also from Amazing Detective, posted waaay waaaay back right here:

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2007/12/weird-woman.html

And before I thank you all for coming by today I do want to say one more thing:

Boom de dahhh--- doh!

Okay, and also keep leprechauns away from Kitty, she tears them lil d00ds to pieces just as they slide off a rainbow, creepin' around after their pot o'gold leaf nip from Columbia. Always after thee lucky charms, she be...

Course I'm in the middle of catching up, and I suspect that very few people will ever see this comment, it being about forty days later. Still. I want to record the first story as I might have written it:

First few pages would be just the same, but when the gangster gets to the docks with the cop for the ghost show, the spectral figure rises out of the mists and wordlessly extracts bloody revenge. Then it disappears again as quickly and silently as it came. Horrified, the cop then must track down his jaunty actor friend, who maintains his innocence to the bitter end. But of course he is convicted after the police eyewitness testimonial, and so condemned to the ol' electric throne. The end.

This isn't as completely unjust as it seems, even. I mean really: what kind of jaunty actor guy just happens to be strolling around the foggy wharf in the middle of the night anyway? I'm sure he was guilty of something.

"...the capital of online comic book horrors... saying "Not the best story THOIA has run" is a bit like saying "one of Beethoven's lesser symphonies!"---Quasar Dragon

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"...an online repository of vintage comic fear fare where individual stories from long out-of-print issues are posted in high resolution, page by page. For a fan of EC, Atlas and other Silver Age-era comic companies, it is pure heaven (and hell)..."---Bryan Reesman (Attention Deficit Delirium)